Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/253

Rh than in the days of Bajazet. Had it not been for the patriotism and gallantry of Hunyad and Scanderbeg, who, from their mountain fastnesses, maintained an incessant and often successful warfare against his aggressions, he would have carried his conquests still further. Doubtless, but for them, he would have accomplished the dream of his life by effecting the capture of Constantinople, and thus have completed the overthrow of the last relic of the once proud and powerful Byzantine empire. This, however, he was not fated to accomplish, as he died in the year 1452.

His son Mahomet II., at that time twenty-two years of age, was proclaimed emperor in his place. All the Christian powers of the east of Europe, including the Order of St. John, sent ambassadors to the court of the young prince to congratulate him on his accession. Contrary to the usual custom of Moslem princes, he received these envoys with the utmost courtesy, and promptly renewed all the treaties that had been signed by his father. This complaisance proved to be but dissimulation. Before the year was out he repudiated all his engagements and took steps to carry out his father’s designs of conquest. On the 29th May, 1453, Constantinople fell, and the banner of Islam waved over the ramparts of the degenerate city.

The scenes which were enacted upon this occasion, when the last of the Paleologi fell beneath the scimitar of the Ottoman, form a dark page in Eastern history. The speech of Mahomet, “Constantinople first and then Rhodes,” was now remembered, and the knights perceived that their turn would shortly conic. Still further to accentuate this warning, Mahomet sent an embassy summoning them to become vassals to his throne, and to pay a yearly tribute of 2,000 ducats. The answer of do Lastic was worthy of the man and of his profession. “God grant that I may not leave as vassals and slaves that Order which I found free and glorious. If the sultan desires to conquer Rhodes he must first pass over my corpse and those of all my knights.” Thoroughly on his guard by what had taken place, do Lastic lost no time in making all necessary preparations for defence. We find him, therefore, in that same year writing a circular to every European comman-